Researchers curse the peer review system after a rejection letter and praise it when their papers sail into publication. But do research journals make the right decisions? To find out, Siler et al. tracked the fates of over 1000 accepted and rejected manuscripts submitted to three leading medical journals. The authors found that overall the journals made good decisions: Manuscripts rejected without peer review received fewer citations than manuscripts rejected after peer review. However, the journals rejected the 14 most highly cited articles (12 without peer review), which may reveal issues in recognizing unconventional leaps.